The Defense of the Ancients
by sammygraceson
Summary: Hmm... where to begin... Oh! I know! how about the fact that i've never seen battle? yep, that's me. little old Ilex. The Destined, as some may call me. More like a fancy title just to satisfy my dreams. Well, it was just another training day. but... well... the story changed. and it certainly was not for the better


**1**

A Face in the Dark

"Come on, Hit Harder!" the old man's voice flew, raspy, across the meadow.

I gasped with the effort. _How many more times does he want me to hit this target?_

But, hit it I did, again an again, banging on it with my broadsword in every which way I could think of. Apparently, it was important enough for Mr. Ezalor over there that I got my TWENTY BLOOY HOURS OF TRAINING IN, but unfortunetly for him, it was not as high on my agenda. You see, I can explain this. I saw a really, an I mean, REALLY good looking forest nymph…. Creature… thing… um, the point is, is that I saw it, and from that distance, I thought it was pretty, and give me a break, it's the only thought I could have held onto to stop myself from charging at one of the most revered spellcasters in all history.

"put your back into it!" he demanded.

I gritted my teeth, and did as I was told, but I was joting each stroke own for later, and quietly planning my revenge at that very moment. Right then and there, on the middle of the training field.

Oh, I'm sorry. Before I go on, maybe I should introduce myself. I'm Ilex, or, if you would like to call me by my hero 'title', "The Destined", which is a nice, fancy, short way of saying "the one who isn't really going to get to do anything, but who we're going to give a nickname to just to make him feel better.

I haven't gotten to participate in a single battle yet. NOT. ONE. And do you know how many there have been? MANY. Maaaanymanymanymany battles, and these Radiant just keep me here, telling me, "ooh, you're the hardest carry we have. You need to train." Well I'm sick of training! What has training ever done for anyone anyway? LINA never had to train. ZEUS never had to train. PUDGE never… well, he had to eat people, but that's besides the point. The point is that this training is really, truly, and honestly boring.

Alright, so, before I unload ALL of my worries onto you, I'll give you a little back story on the war going on here.

So, there are two sides. Simple enough, right? Wrong. Both sides have set up towers, which are incredibly durable, defensive structures, and the goal of these towers is to protect each army's base. It's pretty easy. One of them pushed down the enemies towers, and then they win. But there's a catch.

The towers are guading something. Something very important. Something which I have never seen because I have never been on a battlefield. The word on the street is that these things are reffered to as "ancients", which is a bit ambiguous to me.

So, lets see what we have so far. One side pushes down the towers, check.

Maybe wreaks havoc in the enemy's encamptments, barracks, kitchens, and in the process becomes and overwhelming pain in the arse, check.

Destroys enemy's ancient, effectively winning the war, check.

You see, the catch is that the ancients are vastly powerful and mysterious structures, and that unfortnetly leads to more attention than is neccesarrily wanted. Creatures, people, and beasts from all over the world, and even some from places "outside" this world, gathered to fight for the side of their preference. Sibling rivalries turned into murders, petty misunderstandings into skirmishes, and an argument between a few young friends long ago into a catastrophic lost of life.

Oh yea, and did I mention that each side has people who can, and HAVE, sent all their forces back in time, to fight again, and make sure they win?

At this point, the battles are getting to be fantastic. If people think practice makes perfect, they should see these guys in action.

And of course each army's ancient has found a way to create "Homunculi," or something like them. They're essentially little artificial people who charge into battle and 99% of the time end up dead. Our army's leaders thought that it would be good for practicing, so they kidnapped a few of the Dire (that's the other side, by the way) creeps, which explains why I happen to be whacking one right now.

"Come on, is that all you got?" asked Ezalor, or more commonly known as the Keeper of the Light, when I decided to stop, and promptly collapse on the ground.

"huh?" I asked the flying turquoise sheep. Was there supposed to be three and a half suns, or seven?

I didn't notice it, but I would have been satisfied to know that ezalor's hat almost flew off his head when he realized the time.

"In the name of order and light, I'm late!"

He quickly dashed off his old, almost nightgown-ish cap, to reveal a very stylish tuxedo-style cowboy bandana under it.

"THEY'RE GOING TO START WITHOUT ME!" he screeched as he ran off, almost dropping his pants as he careened past a tree with the space of about a centimeter.

The next thing I knew, it was cold.

I gasped with shock, and quickly pulled myself off of the freezing grass, rubbing my bare, red arms to try and get warm. The grass underneath me, where I had been laying, was covered in a thin sheet of frost. Around it, each individual blade of grass was frozen solid, forming a million icy, razor-sharp points sicking out of the ground.

Then I looked up and noticed the sky.

It was nighttime.

But not just any other nighttime, no. this one was dfferent. There was not one, single source of light in the entire cosmos. It was as if someone had pulled a huge, dark, thick sheet of blackness over the entire sky. The only thing illuminating the clearing I was in was a dim glow, lying a few feet away from me, almost hidden in the grass.

I went to look at it.

It was Ezalor' staff. Broken, in two.

Suddenly, there was a sound. I looked up. There was a horrid, gruesome, malevolent face, starting back at me from the shadows of the forest.

I could hear our ancient, our kind ancient, burning behind the face. The face in the dark.

The Lich.

I ran.


End file.
